Frosty scenes near the train tracks

Just before sunset I got down to the train tracks near campus and made a few paintings. It was pretty frosty out there, you can see all the ice crystals that formed in the watercolour washes up in the sky, and in my shadow at the front. The commuter train went by and cars were heading home after a days work. Between the road and the bike path there was a triangle of fresh snow that cast my shadow in a neutral sky blue. 

Road path tracks my shadow, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, February 2026 

Looking to the west, the commuter train rumbled by. The foliage around the train tracks, including trees and vines, made for some good contrasts with the straight lines of the train tracks. When composing scenes in the winter, its important to keep an eye on the compositions because there is not a whole lot of colour to work with. In this case I used a variety of overlapping lines, in the first painting I relied on the triangle of snow to carry the scene. Hopefully it warms up a bit and I can paint some more. 

Train foliage, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, February 2026 

Peel basin and canal frozen snowy

Making it from downtown to the peel basin, I found some more sun shine and a good view of the old pier covered in snow. At the base of the canal wall, there was a trail of paw prints, likely belonging to a fox that walks around here in the winter. I did not see the fox this time, but have painted it in the past here and here. When painting in the winter with salt water and freezing temperatures, you have to paint a lot darker knowing that it will dry light. In fact, you loose about two full shades of darkness when it dries. For that reason, I dab in plenty of darks like indo blue (PB60), dark magenta (PV55), and carbon black (PBk6). 

Peel basin paw prints, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, February 2026 

Its funny I've never really painted these old towers by the canal, they are long defunct and rusting away. Recently hydro quebec announced they will remove all the towers, but some critics are saying they are heritage objects that should be saved. From an artistic standpoint they are more of a pain, so they could take them away, but maybe they are part of the history. Seeing them up close it looks more like they are ready to fall down.  

 Old towers by canal, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, February 2026 

Still cold downtown Montreal

At least the bike was in good shape, all the gears changed and the chain was moving. Its still cold in Montreal, down at Place des Arts was a rare spot where the sun came through. In the foreground, you see parts of the metro station, and some piles of snow. With sun beaming down it warmed a little, but my toes were still getting cold. 

Cold toes, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, February 2026

Here is a painting of one of the Jazz buildings, in fact, the Concordia University convocation happens here too. I get to sit up on the stage wearing regalia and clap for hours on end! Its the same stage where the late Robin Williams did a comedy show decades ago. In the foreground, you see one of the twisty jazz lamps and a few trees protruding from the snow. 

Jazz lamp, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, February 2026 

This was the first painting of the day, at Vendome metro station half way between NDG and downtown. I almost chickened out and headed home from here, but pushed onwards while the sun was shining and I had the free time. Today required heavily salted water, and the paintings were kind of freezing instead of drying. 

Venome snow piles, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, February 2026 
 

Bananas mango apple

The fruit looks a little bit different here in Canada especially when painting indoors in the the evening with artificial lights. By comparison, in Brazil I got to paint fresh fruit of great variety out in the South American sun when it was shining. Keep in mind its freezing cold outside with a meter of snow, so we are lucky to have any fresh fruit at all, and to be fair, the bananas at the other grocery store looked a lot better than these ones. That mango incidentally, is probably from Brazil anyways! Painting fruit can be difficult, although the shapes are simple enough, there are colour variations and textures to pay attention to, and different light and shadow effects. Its good practice anyways, and I kind of enjoy it more and more. Cezanne was famous for painting still life of fruit, he would set up a whole table full and paint the whole scene. 

Bananas mango apple, watercolour 8 x 10" cold press, February 2026 

Mounds of snow Raffi Auto

Yeah, now you know I am back in Montreal, here is a painting of Raffi Auto shop on Harley street in the Westhaven neighborhood done at lunch hour today. It was an enormously difficult painting to complete because I completely lost my cold acclimatization while in Brazil, not to mention came down with a lingering head-cold. The other adjustment was I had to use salt water, and as usual, the blobs of paint were frozen hard as a rock on the palette. Brazil in contrast, I used fresh water, and the paints were goopy and tacky due to the heat. Somehow, I held on and got the entire Raffi painting done on location as you can see, including my initials in place of their sign. Its set to warm up to a balmy zero ℃ after the weekend, although we still wont be wearing the new flip-flops quite yet!

Mounds of snow Raffi Auto, 6 x 7.5" watercolour February 2026

Brazil 2026 palette: earthy and warm

I painted a picture of my palette from the Brazil trip, actually I had two palettes with the identical set up. I also brought three extra tubes of paint, yellow (PY154), dark blue (PB60), and dark green (PBk31). There are 22 blobs of paint on the palette, although several of them are duplicates so there were 18 distinct paints. The duplicates were there because of different uses, for example in position 11 there is a yellow to mix greens with, and position 16 is the same yellow but used to mix oranges. Each day I rinsed the mixing areas lightly with water and a hogs hair brush to keep it clean, and washed my brushes with glycerine-based soap and water. This kept the colours fresh for each day of painting. 

Since its my third trip to Brazil I already had notes and experience. Raw sienna (PBr7) was important so I added a big blob of it in the upper left mixing area (position 13), and used it a lot. The yellow went fast too, which was fun because I never use much yellow in the Canadian winter, but in the Brazil landscape its the number 1 colour to use. Magenta got a real workout in Brazil, I carry a dark magenta (PV55, position 6) and a bright magenta (PR122 position 20), these mix well with the indo blue (PB60 position 7 and 15) to make purple. The colourful flowering trees used these mixtures. Since the soil in South America is a deep red earth colour, it permeates much of the landscape. So I used plenty of burnt sienna (PR101) which actually contains the same iron oxide pigment that is in the soil, and also in the beans!

Brazil 2026 palette: warmth

Here are some more details, I tried to number the position of each paint, but the first one was cut off in the scan, 

1.  yellow ochre (PY43, also PY42).... this is great in a dilute wash for creating the subtle yellow tint in the Brazilian sky. I applied it to most of the cloudy areas. Also mix with purple to get glowing warm greys.  

2. umber (PBr7),  good for sweaty concrete, also weathered Brazilian plaster that is common on some buildings. 

3. burnt umber (PBr7), shadow area of mangoes, some tree barks, center of some flowers.  

4. burnt sienna (PBr7), exposed south american earth, clay pots

5. maroon (PY179), dark red shadows on clay pots, fruit, red flowers

6. dark magenta (PV55), purple flowers, deep red mixtures

7. dark blue (PB60), dark purple, cool sky at top of painting, mix with earth for charcoal neutrals, cloud shadows, mix with yellow for distant mountain blue. 

8. phthalo green blue shade (PG7), car windshields, dilute wash for horizon cyan colour with phthalo blue

9. dark green (PBk31), pine trees, dark shadows of trees, shadow on grass

10. phthalo green yellow shade (PG36), greenery with yellow mixes, background of Brazil flag

11. yellow (PY154) greenery with yellow mixes, chatreuse, mix with black for shadow

12. orange-yellow (PY110), olive greens, warm tint on chartreuse

13. Raw sienna (PBr7), add to most mixtures, thin glaze for warmpth

14*. pyrol orange (PO73), night skies with dark blue, and for neutral purple shades.  

15. dark indo blue (PO60), night skies with pyrol orange, and for neutral purple shades.   

16.  yellow (PY154), same as other yellow, for mixing warm yellows like flowers, car headlights, bananas!

17. orange (PO62), use for orange objects like ... oranges! sun highlight on brown objects or exposed soil, and cats fur

18. pyrol orange (PO73), bright orange in some fruits, pylons 

19. pyrol red (PR254), tail lights of cars, some flowers, some fruit

20. magenta (PR122), magenta flowers, bright purples

21. blue sapphire (PB15), sky blue, mix with PG7 for horizon blue, some  blue objects like water-collectors in Brazil

22. black (PBk6), dark shadows like under cars some times, also for making dark yellow, dark green, dark red. use dilute for initial painting outline

 

 *pyrol orange and indo blue are both very high chroma pigments and mix a fantastic range of dark blue to smokey violets, however, if you mix them with other paints, they get dirty and the mix wont look nice. So I keep a secondary set of blobs just for mixing these two paints together. 

Last painting from Brazil Trip

On what we though was the last day of the trip, I did this scene of a pink flower in a shrub outside of the locked gate of the family home. It seemed to be symbolic of São Paulo, a beautiful city locked behind tall walls, barbed wire and gates. There is a massive wealth disparity here, rich people fly to work in helicopters from their luxury condos, while poor people live in brick and tin shanties. Slavery only ended towards the end of the 19th century, in 1872 there were around 1.5 million slaves out of a population of 10 million people. With about 150 years passing, the wealth inequity is nowhere near to being leveled out, so the rich people build higher walls and taller fences. You can see my paintings from a wealthy area called Indaiatuba, rated the best city in Brazil to live in, where the houses are sleek and behind gated communities. Cilei's family is approximately in the middle class, they are well off enough to have proper houses and afford good education, which has to be paid for since the public education system is underfunded. The painting was meant to show the contrast of the sturdy steel fencing with a palm tree and delicate flower in the background. 

Pink flower locked gate, 6 x 7.5" watercolour, February 2026 

In this scene, a massive jungle tree is still visible over the top of the auto shop across the street from the family home. When Cilei's dad built the home about 45 years ago, the entire neighborhood had trees like this, and rain forest-clouds would form. It was a quiet jungle paradise. Now it is a densely populated built-up neighborhood right next to a noisy highway. But it still has the charm and great views, and most of all, its a family home full of love and camaraderie. We commented how a wealthy person living alone behind a gated community with millions of Reals to spend is perhaps not as rich as a person living day-to-day and surrounded by friends and family. All the same, we could have done without the motorcycles zooming by. 

Tall tree autoshop, 6 x 7.5" watercolour, February 2026 

 

Waiting in the departure gate late at night and out flight was cancelled due to mechanical problems with the airplane, better than when up in the air I guess. That meant another 5 hours of waiting in various lines to get to a hotel. The next day there was down time, so I made a few last painting, this one showing a biplane-installation, it was actually up on a pole like a monument, but I omitted the pole to make it look like it was landing. In fact, huge passenger planes were zooming by at very low altitude to land at the nearby GRU airport. Cars and a commuter train could be seen in the background. 

Biplane near hotel, 6 x 7.5" watercolour, February 2026 

Finally, I found a Brazilian flag to paint, seen in the center of the painting. The building had something to do with the airport, it was glass-paneled with plaster walls. So all of the Brazil paintings are up on the blog now, there was one more I did at the Buddhist temple that I added to the end of the blog here. I also scanned all of the paintings, re-uploaded the images for better quality, and corrected the typos and formatting issues I had while blogging on the phone. Back in Montreal its -17℃ and I have no desire to paint outside for the time being! Luckily it will warm up a bit this week. I will write a blog on the Brazil palette soon, there were some interesting things to talk about regarding paints. It was a good trip all in all with a bit of vacation, visiting, and working remotely all the while, and I have a sun tan to show for it! 

Brazil flag near hotel, 6 x 7.5" watercolour, February 2026